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Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Alright, now that the holiday season is (mostly) over, I'm here with another review. This time it's for the game "Epic War 2", which is the sequel to a game greg called "The best ever" and is this week's challenge. So, let's get to the part where I give my opinion on the game.

Before I begin the review, just let me say that I'm going to place a new section in my reviews called "Review at a glance" for those times when you don't have the time to read the full review, or you just want to hurry and play the game. It will be in red, and bold, to stand out. :)

--------------BEGIN REVIEW-----------------------

Graphics: (8/10) -- The graphics in the game are very good, especially the backgrounds. The backgrounds are very artistic, and I could spend an entire battle lost in the swirls and depths of the art placed behind the action. The units themselves, however, are not amazing. They're not "bad" persay, just bland. They don't "catch your eye". Summary: Don't expect any special graphics other than the backgrounds, which are amazing.

Sound: (6/10) -- Sound is pretty good in this game. The main problem with it is the repetitiveness of the music. I just find myself not being mesmerized at all by the music, and I just sort of forget the music is even playing. The sound effects, however, are pretty good. They serve their purpose and match the mood of the game. Summary: Music = repetitive.

Gameplay: (6/10) -- The gameplay would be amazing in this game, if not for three key factors ripping it to shreds. Number one: The autofire. To purposely put it in there is just to ruin your game. Secondly: Monotonous gameplay. If rudy_sudarto would have put something in there to keep you playing, it would have been much better. Third: Weak unit spam. You can autofire your bow for half an hour while charging mana, and unleash a barrage of your weakest units. Insta-win. Insta-wins without challenge makes for horrible gameplay. Summary: The gameplay is good for a while, but just gets boring and has a few factors that ruin it if you play long enough to notice them.

Controls: (9/10) -- Controls are excellent. The reason for them being excellent is because you can control the entire game with the mouse, or play the whole game with a series of hotkeys if you wish. Summary: If you are worried that the controls will suck in this game, don't. You can play the entire game with the mouse OR keyboard.

Difficulty: (5/10) -- This game is laughably easy if you combine two of the game's fatal flaws: Autofire and weak unit spam. The bosses do, however, provide some challenge. Summary: It's an easy game, but the bosses are hard.

Replayability: (6/10) -- I haven't exactly beaten the game, but there are three different races to play as, and eighteen levels per race. If you want to get maximum play time out of this game, you can get three playthroughs out of it. That should be enough for a pretty good score, right? Wrong. Playing those eighteen levels two more times after beating the main game is very monotonous. But, since there is so much to do in this game, it scores a six. Summary: You can play through the game as three different races, so if you want to play this game to 100%, it might take you a good bit.

Final Score: 40/60 -- 3.5/5 (4/5 rounded)

REVIEW AT A GLANCE: Epic war II is definately worth a play, and the replayability is really good if you like the game. The controls are excellent, yet the game has three main flaws gameplay wise. The main two of those three being autofire and weak unit spam. The graphics and sound aren't anything special, but the backgrounds are splendid. Epic War II is not a hard game, aside from bosses.

I have absolutely fallen in love with this game. It is updated constantly and if you visit the forums you can get your input in what changes are made. I recommend this game to anyone who has free time or wants some easy badges. You can play the game here. The hard badge involeves surviving through wave 50 with less than 11 casualties. This doesn't sound very easy but it really is. Just don't send out more than 10 people and you will be fine. I prefer using a spec ops with a BAR becuase he can do major damage. Snipers can be good but sometimes take to long to take shot. And officers are a must just for the concentrate fire when you really need to stop a certain enemy. Just try things out your way and have fun with it. And if you play now sometimes Santa comes strolling onto the field and if you are not nice (kill) him you get a ribbon.

Here is a video I made a while back for Shift 2. It will get you the alternate ending in which you live and in the description it tells you how to get the normal ending as well. So check it out here. I will upload to blogger video later.

damijin: Ultimately, my passion has always been with game development. I was really happy to work with Kong for a year and a half, and I'm still really cool with Jim, Emily, and everyone else -- but I wanted to make games, and I couldn't do that as a community manager.

Juze: So you really do like to create games?

damijin: Yep, I love the creative process in it. I like having something that I made. Something that other people can play and enjoy. Oh Buoy actually took almost a year to develop. It was my first game, and it was a good learning experience. I didn't really understand what flash gamers wanted. Even though a lot of people enjoy it, I think I can do a lot better at reaching masses. My second game, Pyro, will be released sometime in the next 12 hours I hope! Oh Buoy took so long to make because my programmer was in school, and could only work on it when he was home. I was working, so my time was bad too. That experience is why I wanted to work full time on games, and leave my job. My new programmer, Arkatufus, is also working full time. He's also really great at what he does :)

damijin: So, Pyro is a puzzle game, but a different type. It's based heavily on physics, and has a really awesome fire effect thats generated procedurally by code. In each level, there's several unlit torches, and you grab and throw a fireball at them to light enough to pass on to the next level. You have to a lot of tricky shots and it can get really hard.

Juze: Did you became first a moderator on Kong, or were you promoted directly as an admin?

damijin: I was a moderator first for several months.

Juze: Why did you/Kong wanted you to become as an admin?

damijin: I never expected that to happen, and never asked for it actually. Kongregate needed to hire someone for a relatively simple job. They needed someone who could work when everyone else was at home, so, nights and weekends. My job was mostly to make sure the site didnt crash, and also a little bit of quality assurance testing. Greg IMed me on day and just said "So we went out to lunch, and we'd like to offer you a job." Jim called me on the phone, we worked out the specifics, and I started in a few days. Once I was in, I worked myself into a strong role in community and support. They eventually extended me from a part time employee to full time, and then salaried with benefits and all that.

Juze: Do you have anything else you might wanna say?

damijin: Thanks for the interview Juze, I hope Pyro does well! Otherwise I might have to beg Jim and Emily for my job back :-P.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Hey guys, here's a video of a Kongai game I played. I used an Onimaru/Flash, Marquis/Necro, and Zina/DP deck. Contradanza used an Ambrosia/Tomes, Popo/Mask, and Yoshi/Gen's insig.

That Flash Powder saved my Oni's ass against Ambrosia. IMO I played horribly against that Ambro and I should have done way better, but meh. I forgot about spectral choke and didn't push far when I needed to. He made a couple pretty bad mistakes too, forgetting about spectral choke too and losing his yoshiro first.

BTW, I highly recommend going to youtube and playing this at high quality rather than normal quality. Everything is much clearer in high quality.

Friday, December 19, 2008

- it is a 3 card tournament
- no double elimination + “best two out of three”
- room for 32 players this time. If I don’t manage to gather enough participants, I’ll cut it down to 16.
- normal decks this time. There were many complaints during random deck tournament (that luck is decisive when it comes to randomization of decks)
- It will take place on 27th of December, time: unknown yet, I’ll let you know in couple of days, place:Room 40
- Make sure you know when the tournament starts in your time zone. There are always problems with that.
- In order to participate, you have to have at least 500 rank points, at the moment of registering.
- If you’re late, you have 5 minutes to show up, then you are replaced.
- You can join even though there are no spots left. You will be put on a reserve list. All guys from the reserve list are supposed to appear as well.
- Let me know if you cannot participate.
- That was never specified earlier: draws count as win for both players.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

You may have heard of Deeperbeige or his game "Hanna in a Choppa." Well here is a KCG Exclusive Interview with him!

Q: First of, Hello, and thank you for Putting in time to do this interview.

A: You're welcome. Come, sit, have a cup of tea.

Q: So first question, what chat rooms are you usually in (on Kongregate) so that fans can talk to you!

A: The site seems to put me in the Game Theory room, but I don't really spend much time chatting there. Much as I'd love to play games and chat all day, I have real work to do too. A fella's got to make a living, it's a hard life y'know.

Q: When did you start making games?

A: Going way way back in time, my parents bought the family an Amstrad CPC6128. It was an advanced thing for it's time, with an 8 bit CPU, 128kb of memory and a floppy disk drive! Back then magazines used to print code listings for really simple games and apps that you could type in and run. I remember slaving for hours typing one in with the hopes of getting an amazing free game at the end. I didn't know you should press 'return' at the end of each line, and just padded it out with spaces until it looked the same as the mag. Of course it didn't work. The next one I typed in did. Kinda. It played for a few seconds before the machine crashed and reset itself, losing my work. After a while though, I started to understand what was going on though and could make my own code work.

The first game I can remember writing that actually worked and played like a game didn't really have a title. You were in a little spaceship which started a bit above the ground, and dived down into a twisty tunnel. You dodged left/right to avoid the walls, and there was even an ending at the bottom. It was all very primitive though, and terribly coded of course.

The Amstrad was replaced with an Amiga in due course, and I started programming games in that with Amos Basic. Most of them are lost now, but a few probably still survive on Aminet and a couple were actually reasonably playable games. Later I went to university and came out to program PCs in a corporate environment for years. It pays well, but is unbelievably tedious, so I learned Flash in my spare time and wrote a couple of simple games to demonstrate my ability. Those games got me a job in a digital agency, mostly writing online advergames. I was quite astounded that you could make an actual living writing Flash games.

Just recently I gave up that job and decided to become freelance. I now work for clients when I can get the work, and write games like Hanna in a Choppa when I don't have clients.

This answer is also available in hardback from your favorite retailers...

Q: What do you think the biggest challenge was starting out, and if so any advice?

A: It depends which part of 'starting out' you mean. In terms of making a commercial go of it, I found it hard to confidently believe that there's a real living to be made from making Flash games. For others, there's obviously the technical challenge of actually building games that work. Whilst anyone can train themselves to program, some people are clearly better suited to it than others, and a bit of natural ability will carry you well. Assuming you can do the techie bits, there are still a number of pitfalls. You need to have huge amounts of motivation to keep going and get your game finished. I don't mean just playable, but really polished and complete. You need an endless supply of ideas too, and the ability to sort the good ones from the bad ones.

The biggest challenge between your work-in-progress and a great game however is probably your own attachment to it. Because you work closely with it for weeks, you know how to play it better than anyone else in the world and every part of it makes perfect sense to you. You'll love and adore it, and be completely blind to its many large faults! Seriously, it'll be full of enormous glaring problems, but you literally won't be able to see them.The only thing you can do to reveal them is get other people's feedback. You need to sit several people down in front of your game and tell them "play this game". Don't tell them anything more. Don't explain how the controls work, where to click to start or anything. Just watch. You'll be amazed what you learn. Whatever they struggle over, scale the problem up in your mind to the same thing irking everybody that plays your game.

This is quite a brutal process. For example with Hanna in a Choppa, it was originally written with just the 'hard' controls where you use the mouse to rotate the chopper, and the mouse button to throttle in the direction you're facing. I still maintain that this is the richest and most tactile way to play the game, but almost nobody was patient enough to learn how to fly like this without getting frustrated and giving up. I added the simple controls where the chopper just flies the way you tell it to on the arrow keys, and put them in a menu option. Another run through the feedback process and it still had the same problem. People wouldn't play long enough to even want to switch to the easy controls. I changed it again so the player had to choose which control system they wanted before playing. This was better, but some people picked 'hard' then gave up again, without ever trying it on 'easy'. Those players lost out on the fun of the game, and would have given it a terrible rating on the portals. Eventually I made the easy controls the default for everyone, with an option to switch to hard controls buried deep in a menu most people don't even go into.

The final configuration made me cry a little inside. I still loved the hard controls as they are so much richer than the easy ones. It's just a better game that way in the long run, but if people don't play it, it's a complete failure. This is the challenge I mention above - it's really quite tough to take a feature you love and to cut it out or hide it away because it doesn't work for other people. You absolutely have to follow the feedback however, or suffer the consequences in your ratings and hence your sponsorship deals.

Q: So obviously one of your most successful games is Hanna in a Choppa, what are your favorite parts of it, what part would you add, and what would you take out?

A: Actually, a 3rd person shooter I wrote to promote an Iron Maiden album was significantly more successful than Hanna in a Choppa in terms of number of plays, but Hanna is certainly my most successful private release.

There are a few minor things that could use extra polish with Hanna. Often people can't tell what a 'perfect' run is, and don't spot the little perfect/speedy indicators in the bottom left. Some people get frustrated with the bouncy physics of the winch, which is fair enough and could be tuned further. Some people complained that there was no 'win' sequence after beating the last level (there's a reward when you get every achievement though). Lots of people complained that getting a perfect on Levels 8 and 19 was really hard, which is true enough too. Some people spat vitriol at me for making the dev-feedback form an achievement, although I'd leave that in because I've learned so much from it. A few people complain that it runs a bit slow on their machine, which again is perfectly fair. I wrote the physics engine in AS2 and it's a bit of a lardy language for that sort of thing sometimes.

As for favorite features, I personally love the crush-o-tron, the cement mixer, playing with the rough sea waves and dodging the SAMs. I tried really hard to present a unique new challenge on each level rather than just ramp up the difficulty over time. I wanted people to have to think a little on each level and learn how a new object worked. It's easy as a developer to just make the levels harder over time. It's a lot more work to keep redefining the challenge, but it's way more fun for a player. This is a lesson the recent World of Goo indie game teaches so well.

Other people love the button you can wind up, the sheep, the humor and the references. The music splits opinion like Marmite, some adoring it, and some hating it. Quite a few people missed the fact that it has an off-button though!

Q: Is there any new games that are in the making that you wish to tell KCG about it first (or second)?

A: Well, I keep a spreadsheet for game ideas, and it currently has 30 entries, mostly fairly original concepts. I tend to keep ideas close to my chest because you can run the risk of someone else developing them into a game first. I can tell you however that I have a dark, story led game in development, and a portal inspired 2D platformer with a fairly special gun (no, it doesn't fire portals). You won't have played anything like either of them before!

I have also built a proof-of-concept of a great driving game engine. Not sure yet exactly what game to build it into, but there's lots of potential there. There's a few other physics-based games I have in mind too...

Q: Any Chance of Hanna in a Choppa 2

A: Yes, but not for a while. I have lots of other Hanna games in mind first, and lots of other games in general. Hanna was originally going to be on a Hoppa (like a space-hopper). The early gameplay builds didn't play like I wanted though, and I tried out the chopper concept instead which played a lot better. I'm revisiting Hanna on a Hoppa now however, and there's plenty more along those lines that I could try too. Hanna won't be back in a chopper until I've been through at least a few of the others.

Q: Anything else you wish to add?

A: Thanks for reading, and my apologies for rambling incoherently for so long!

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Thanks to all your tireless efforts testing and testing and retesting the game, the Dinowaurs Open Beta is now live on Kongregate. Thanks to everyone who participated in the alpha and the beta! Now go destroy some n00bs!

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

This being my first post on the site, I'd like to introduce myself. I am Venturakid94. I've been on kong for more than half a year, and have most of the badges. You can find me in the hive, general, feed the ducks, or anthill. If you have any questions feel free to ask me. :)

Meat Boy

Bandaids are on the following levels:

World One – The Forest

3, 5, 7, 9, 12, 14

World Two – The Factory

3, 4, 6, 9, 11, 14

World Three – Hell

1, 2, 7, 9, 12, 15

World Four – Expert

1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10

If you need help on any of these bandaids lea ve a shout on my profile

Room 4: Outside HiveNOTE: There are four rooms, and you can play as either Reemus or Liam. After each step I’ll write R or L, and 1, 2, 3, or 4 depending on the room (1 is leftmost)1. Big yellow flower – R12. Walk back to room 4 – R43. Donuts in front – R14. Dirt pile on ground – R25. Walk back to Liam – R46. Adjust the sacks to be the highest they can – L37. Bird – L38. Sticks poking out on the bottomleft of the leftmost “tree” – L29. Berry – R210. Walk to the right – L4

Monday, December 15, 2008

Just like all your favorite horror movies, the Dinowaurs beta is back one final time...for vengeance. We're wrapping things up with Dinowaurs and we're having one final testing to try to iron out any remaining kinks. The game is 99% complete at this point, with only a couple of small tweaks and improvements left to make, so you can really kick the tires and see if you can make it break. We've also changed some balance things, made certain weapons more powerful, lessened others, added a cooldown limitation to the jetpack, stuff like that. You guys playing games and telling us how these changes feel to you is just as important as bug-finding.

Sorry if there's a couple of spoilers in there, but the important thing is that Dinowaurs is going to be released very soon now.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

If you like retro-style graphics, retro sounds, pong-esquegameplay, and frantic button mashing to bounce some brightly colored pixels across the screen, Pel is the game for you.

Graphics: 8/10 - Can't go wrong with retro style graphics, and this game is just that. Your character, the bar at the bottom of the screen, isn't an intricately designed character model, or a convoluted patten, it's just a bar. A grey bar. Your goal is to get the brightly colored squares from one side to the other, and the squares leave colored trails as they do so. All along the way it is beautifully animated.Gameplay: 9/10 - As I've said in the past: Simple is good. This game follows that rule, and it pays off. The game's play consists of moving a bar from the left, middle, and right sides of the screen, bouncing Pels, or little squares, across the screen. There are powerups for you to get, such as "Double Paddle", "Extra Life" (You get to miss three Pels, then game over.), and "AutoPilot". As you play, the gameplay gets a lot harder, and you find yourself dashing to get to the Pels, just before they fall too far down.

Sound:6/10 - The sound is pretty cool, although after about ten minutes of gameplay, the constant beeping noises get very annoying. The reason they get annoying is because the entirety of the sounds are different tones of beeps and boops. Luckily, there's a mute button.

Difficulty: 9/10 - If you get past a score of 30,000, and you still think the game is easy, I bow down to you. This game is really hard, or it gets to be. As you play, the difficulty steadily rises, and more and more "pels" are crossing the screen at once. All the time you are frantically mashing left to right and back left again desperately hoping your bar will reach that blue Pel before it falls.

Replayability: 10/10 - The game is insanely hard. After you lose your final life, you'll find yourself panting and ready to smash your keyboard into oblivion. Yet you play again. Always hoping to get a higher score, and even when you succeed, you play again. No matter what, you'll always keep coming back to Pel trying to get just a little higher score.Total Score: 42/50Final Score: (Not an average) -- 4.5/5

In conclusion, Pel is a fast-paced game that will always keep you coming back for more, despite it's very annoying sounds. Every time you come back to play again, you'll witness again the great animation and graphics, as simple as they are.Pel is definitely worth a play, at least, if you haven't played it already.

Well it has finally come everyone. Kongai has badges! I personally don't care for them but others are excited. It has been a long time coming for Kongregate's CCG to get some badges and here they are. There are three an easy, medium, and hard. Defeat the kong-bot once to get the easy badge and then beat 10 people in ranked matches and make 3 interceptions to get the medium. The one I am not pleased with is the hard badge in which you have to get to skill rank 20. But since I am a badgeaholic I will still go for all of them. Good luck and keep on collecting the cards to make these much easier.~hipcheck

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Hey everyone I know that SeppuKutties just got badges and that it is a great game. If you want to get that second hard badge and collect your 80 points then check out this video from my buddy Tasselfoot. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0UFWTUs8oM. It will get you down to 24 lives left and you will have to find just one more level to lose one less. It wasn't that hard and neither were any of the badges. So good luck and that is all the help you should need. If you need any more help just ask me hipcheck on Kongregate. Leave me a shout or find me in chat.~hipcheck

Cain Solomon is fairly versitale. He has a solid, close range move that can interrupt and a slow, long-range attack that can kill a lot of other characters in 2 moves. Still, he's weak against characters that are resistant to dark attacks and his moves are somewhat slow. Of course, slow moves are a two-edged sword when paired with his innate.

Cain Solomon's innate is useful. A lot of people try to get Cain in his innate zone, but that's not helpful, especially since his moves aren't that fast. Rather, what people should do is intimidate the enemy. When the enemy can only bring you into your innate zone, that's horrible for you.

Suggested Items:

Phylactery: That 30% chance to leave you alive can be deadly for the opponent, especially since your moves are slow.Necronomic Tomes: Adds to your already-powerful moves' attack. However, it could possibly heal you out of your innate zone, so be careful of that

Notable Matchups:

vs Anex: This one's pretty interesting since they both have the same innate ability. If they're at their base health (70 and 70), then the range determines who wins. If they're at far, Anex wins hands down, but if they're close, Cain usually wins unless Anex has a sharpening stone.

Other things:

Because of a bug called the host bug, Cain may or may not benefit from his innate if he's killed with a move of the same speed that he's using.